Milestones

My five-year old son is quite the sports fanatic.  He has been ice skating since he was two years old and currently plays in an ice hockey league.  He has played soccer for almost as long.  He enjoys tennis with my wife and my father on occasion.  We play touch football at the beach as a family.  He enjoys playing baseball and basketball in the backyard and I’ve even introduced him to lacrosse.   He was a natural at learning how to ski and he has a very good golf swing.  We’ve gone on hikes together and he’s even jogged with my father who is a marathon runner.  I even plan on doing a curling clinic with him at some point!  

The one major physical activity that was missing from his sports repertoire was riding a bicycle without training wheels.  It’s not that he wasn’t capable of it, but rather my wife and I were so busy with so many other activities that we never really focused on teaching him how to ride a bike other than occasional trips to the PG recreation trail with his training wheels.  It suddenly dawned on my wife and me that our super athlete needs to know how to ride a bicycle.

I realized that this was a major milestone.  I remember the day my father took the training wheels off of my bicycle.  He ran behind the bike and pushed me and then he’d let go.  I’d glide for several feet and then I’d fall.  We repeated this process over and over again until one time I felt that he was pushing me for a long time and I told him: “Stop pushing!”  He responded: “I’m not!”  I looked over my shoulder and he was far behind me.  I was riding my bike!  It felt as if I were flying!  

I don’t remember how long it took me to learn how to ride the bike, but I figured this milestone for my son would require a great degree of preparation and trial and error.  I did some research online about how to teach a child to ride a bike.  We were finally ready for the big day.

We took our son to the PG Middle School track.  He rode around a few times on his training wheels and then we ceremoniously removed them.  My wife and I ran beside him.  Less than 5 minutes later, he had it all figured out.  While I was running beside him to catch him in case he fell (and running out of breath in the process), he said to me: “Dada, go far away – I don’t need your help anymore!”  Although I was very proud of him for picking it up so quickly, part of me was a little disappointed that such an epic milestone was achieved without much effort.  

As parents, our children reach various milestones all the time.  At each stage, we launch them a little further into independence and eventually adulthood.  Estate planning often represents the final launch – the ultimate transition from one generation to the next.  It is the culmination of a lifetime of planning, teaching, preparing, and loving our children.  

KRASA LAW, Inc. is located at 704-D Forest Avenue, Pacific Grove, California 93950 and Kyle may be reached at 831-920-0205.

Disclaimer: This article is for general information only.  Reading this article does not establish an attorney / client relationship.  Before acting on any of the information presented in this article, you should consult a competent attorney who is licensed to practice law in your community.